


the world might cut you down again

by tupsukorva



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Unresolved Tension, emotional constipation: the fic, personal take on the scene in firestar's quest, some others appear by name
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-20
Updated: 2020-05-20
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:55:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24286996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tupsukorva/pseuds/tupsukorva
Summary: Firestar stayed quiet for a while, shuffling his paws, like that would help him come up with something remedial to say. Then, he spoke.“Let’s say, then, that your sight never comes back. What do you want to do then?”“You make it sound like I have a choice,” Longtail muttered as he wrapped his tail around himself tighter.“You do, though."-Longtail has an unexpected guest. They work things out.
Relationships: Firestar & Longtail (Warriors)
Comments: 17
Kudos: 110





	the world might cut you down again

**Author's Note:**

> I can't fix what was done to you  
> but I'll shield you from the rain  
> and if the walls they build become too high  
> then step up on my back and climb  
> 'cause I never mind
> 
> \- "small hands" by radical face

Obscured by a thick shrubbery of fern and hogweed, inside a wide crevice in the wall of a ravine, lied one particularly listless Longtail. In a world where the weather seemed to mirror his moods, as though it was making a mockery out of him, there was nothing outside but the even drum of rain to interrupt his thoughts of – well, not a whole lot, really.

Cinderpelt had long since left to do her evening rounds, leaving her patient wallowing about in his quiet misery alone. He’d only pretended to be asleep if the occasional passerby had decided to peek inside the den, but still kept a hopeful lookout (well, _smell_ out) for Mousefur, despite knowing full well that there was little reason for her to visit twice in one day. Longtail had held onto her earthy scent, and smacked his lips, bringing it forth once again.

She had come shortly before sundown to bring him the vole she’d esteemed to be the best one in the pile, and told him what had been going on in camp since the last time they had spoken. The news, as they were on that day and most other days, had been rather redundant and nothing he’d usually be interested in – such as how Sorrelpaw had sneezed hard enough to send the fresh-kill pile toppling over, or how Thornclaw had gotten a thorn in his claw. Whether or not Mousefur was downplaying the glamor of Clan life to make him feel better, Longtail didn’t know, but neither did he really care – the ensuing banter had been the only taste of normalcy he’d had in this laughably anomalous ordeal. 

And, once they had ran out of topics to discuss, she had simply settled for stroking his flank with her tail and purring hard enough for the both of them. 

It was rather ... _touching_ , to realize how their camaraderie would always remain unaffected, no matter how badly he had blown it this time. Not even his still-infected, oozing eyes had made her recoil. Longtail felt a smile tugging at his lips at the thought.

But, he was still blind. Back to the squalor, it was.

He could convince himself, if he really wanted to, that everything would be fine eventually and that one day his blight would just be a stain in his memory. It was hard not to try, with how many times Cinderpelt would tell him _It’s not the end of the world, Longtail, you daft lump of fur_. Likewise, he’d seen it happen in cats that had lost equal amounts of themselves to their circumstances – had it then been dogs, cars, or just solely a rotten stroke of luck – but even then, he couldn’t simply just shrug off the fact that there would always be that nagging, ever-present absence of something pivotal for the rest of his life. 

Long gone, he realized, would be the sun-lit hunting days of spotting prey tree-lengths away, and observing his Clan on quiet mornings, relishing in the fact that their well-fed and gallant appearances were in part thanks to his contributions. It was a tremendously overwhelming thing to take in at once. 

… Or perhaps, it was somewhat underwhelming. He’d never been the one to skimp out on patrols and other daily activities, but now, he’d been reduced to tagging behind his Clan for the rest of his life. 

It wasn’t what he’d ever seen in his future. And now he couldn’t see at all. Figures.

Longtail picked himself up and flopped on his other side, so that he’d at least be able to smell the rain instead of the back-wall scent of herbs collecting dust motes faster than Cinderpelt could use them. Blinking several times to make sure his eyes were clear of fluid and closed at the latter’s recommendation (which she had made sure to frame like medical advice, not at all based on her walking in to see Longtail nodding off with his glazed eyes wide open and jumping high enough to touch the ceiling), he concentrated his thoughts on nothingness to will the sleep to come to him faster. Aside from spiraling further into depression, it was the best thing he could think of right then – there wasn’t anything else to do to pass the time, after all.

Well, there _wasn’t_ , not until he heard wet pawsteps trudging their way to the entrance of the den. The rainswept breeze blew in the scent of a visitor, but made it difficult to tell apart their identity.

“Nice weather for ducks out there, isn’t it?” chimed in a male cat, stopping to shake out his fur before stepping in the cave. Recollection came upon Longtail at once, and his head perked up involuntarily.

“Firestar? That you?”

“Yes,” said Firestar, presumably sitting down a little ways from Longtail’s nest and grooming the water out of his pelt. 

Longtail felt agitation and surprise stirring up in his belly, as he tried to deduce what the _Clan leader_ of all cats was doing there when, by all means, he should have been cozying up in his own den a long time ago. He had been visiting irregularly, mostly to converse with Cinderpelt or to survey over Longtail’s sorry state from a distance, still trying to scramble together the details of the incident to form a more coherent idea of what had happened and what should be done about it. 

Not that there was much to do about in the event of a _rabbit_ retaliating against a _cat_ on patrol.

“Sir,” Longtail began, resisting the juvenile urge to make a face at the honorific, “what are you doing here?”

Firestar promptly seemed to gave his fur one last once-over, before settling down on the den floor. “Let’s just say that I’m visiting as a Clanmate, not as your leader,” he meowed, a pragmatic way of telling him that he was free to drop the courteous act if he so desired. “Cinderpelt gave me the okay to check on you.”

Longtail plopped his head back down on the moss, suppressing a sigh at the platitudinous pep talk he was probably moments away from receiving. “You didn’t have to, really. It’s not like I’m going downhill from here,” he muttered. “Lest the rabbit comes around to have another go at me, that’d be something.”

Firestar chuffed at his dry attempt at humor. “Then you’d need me as witness.”

No pep talk came, though. The den fell into a somber silence that was a smidgen awkward between the two former rivals. 

Longtail was sure that Firestar had no need to suck up to his subordinates, as they’d surely follow him off a cliff if he wanted them to, but there would always be something eroding beneath the surface in strained relationships that was difficult to fix till completion. While no upfront animosity between them remained, and they had even managed to gain something of a mutual respect within each other, the badger in the room was still yet to be addressed.

And not to mention the fact that for all his faults, Firestar couldn’t exactly make up for with sage wisdom. As awe-inspiring as he could be, he’d never once been able to count to twenty or notice the mollies fawning over him to save his life. He evidently hadn’t been born with the same instinctual tact and grace of a pure-blood Clanborn.

_But that hadn’t ever even mattered in the long run, had it? Oh, the irony._

“How is she treating you in here?” Firestar asked, breaking off the silence that was surprisingly turning more comfortable by the moment. “Not roughhousing you, I hope?”

Longtail snorted. “No. It’s weird – it’s like she can flip a switch. One moment she’s cooing like a mother cat and telling me to get a grip the next,” he recounted with mock exasperation. 

But, for all it was worth, he found himself growing more and more humbled by Cinderpelt’s dutiful care by each passing day. It must’ve been a thankless job, treating insufferable cats like him, but in her she undoubtedly had the birthright of perseverance like no other. Plus, had it not been for her gentle, yet no-nonsense disposition, he wasn’t sure if he would have made it another day in the medicine cat den. 

(That, and the fact that out of everyone in ThunderClan, she knew best what Longtail was going through. She never stated out loud the painful obvious, much kinder than her predecessor in that regard, but at least she _knew_.)

“She was raised on tough love,” Firestar conceded affectionately. “But you come straight to me if her bedside manners need refining. I still have the authority to tell her off.”

Longtail remembered at once that the two of them used to be mentor and apprentice, back before Yellowfang had taken Cinderpelt under her wing. “Sure,” he snorted amusedly. 

Several beats followed, as Firestar seemed to deliberate over his next question.

“And what did she tell you about your .... condition?” The leader enunciated, as if he was trying to stop himself from backing out of the question. 

And there it was. _Fair enough, though,_ Longtail thought – few cats actually felt it appropriate to ask him himself for his personal recount. Otherwise, they’d just try to goad Cinderpelt into giving them answers she realistically couldn’t give. Even Rainpaw, the small tom who had been handed to them as an extra set of paws, had apparently been the subject of abundant questioning on the fellow apprentices’ part (especially on Sootpaw’s). Longtail couldn’t blame them, not really – he knew he had avoided the medicine cat den just as much as the others had when his nest had been occupied by the likes of Brightheart.

Maybe it had just been his cowardice at play. Or maybe it was the guilt of wishing that it had been someone else in her bed, fighting for his life.

Well, regardless.

“The infection is clearing,” said Longtail, realizing that the den was probably too dark for Firestar to assess his eyes himself, thus his question coming off as more curious than courteous. “Looking better, I guess. Cinderpelt told me that I’m not the first cat in the world to make an unlikely recovery, so I ought to just get the moping out of the way first so that I can get back to work as soon as possible.” His ears were flattening against the back of his head, completely dejected at the thought. “But I know she’s just being optimistic.”

Firestar sighed, heavily, as though he could have used some _actual_ good news as well. He spoke, tinging his voice with labored hope, “if she says it’s a possibility, then maybe it is.” 

“ _It’s not,_ ” Longtail snapped, coming off colder than he perhaps intended. “I’m not dumb, Firestar. I know by now that wishes don’t come true by praying,” he growled, flexing his claws against the bracken-lined fringe of his nest. Swallowing hard to stifle the typhoon of hollow sadness rising up his throat, he continued, more evenly yet bitterly this time. 

“It’s the curse for us wretched folk.”

Longtail felt despondency radiate off of Firestar. Maybe he ought to give the leader more credit – at least he seemed to actually care, even putting aside whatever rancor he must’ve felt towards him in their youth. He couldn’t exactly liken him to a light shining in the darkness, but at least Longtail felt less miserable knowing that he wasn’t about to be given up on – at least yet, anyways. It probably depended on how difficult he was planning to be.

Firestar stayed quiet for a while, shuffling his paws, like that would help him come up with something remedial to say. Then, he spoke.

“Let’s say, then, that your sight never comes back. What do you want to do then?”

“You make it sound like I have a choice,” Longtail muttered as he wrapped his tail around himself tighter. 

The position as medicine cat apprentice was open, he supposed, but he was much too old be learning new trades anymore. Premature retirement wouldn’t have sounded so bad, maybe, if the thought of staying idle full-time didn’t already have him tottering on the brink of sanity. He still had so many things to do as a warrior, like finishing off Sootpaw’s training, but ...

“You do, though,” Firestar said, matter-of-factly. “Eyes or no eyes, you’re still one of our best trackers. Your senses are sharp. You’d still be a valuable asset on patrols,” he went on, not pausing to acknowledge the obvious what-ifs, such as _what happens if my patrol gets ambushed? How can I fight or flee if I can’t see what’s in front of me? Ever think of that, fluffbrain?_ Longtail wanted to grill him, _really_ put him on the spot, just to see what ignorantly optimistic answer he could come up with.

He opted not to. “I’ll … think about it,” he replied reluctantly. 

“We can make it happen,” Firestar pressed. “Just trust me on this.”

Longtail snorted indignantly. He wondered just how many times the leader had had to state similar affirmations, truthful or not, and how many times they’d turned out to be in vain. He knew that in the past, his calls for justice had been shot down dozens of times, either by his peers or by his predecessor Bluestar, but what he couldn’t figure out was _where_ and _how_ he found the will to keep bouncing back each time, more and more determined by each stumble and misfire. Stupidly stubborn, that cat was.

“Funny,” Longtail sighed. “I’ve kicked you around plenty, and yet you never kick back. Even in this state of vulnerability, you insist on being the bigger person.” He sniffed, turning his head towards the back of the den. Not that it made a difference in his field of sight, anyway. 

“You insist on nobility. It’s so sincere that I could throw up.”

Longtail felt a thread of static passing through the air. He could imagine Firestar angling his ears backwards, stammering his way through a response that would keep the conversation from turning sour. But he was surprisingly calm as he spoke, his voice suddenly eons away. 

“I haven’t been perfect.” 

Something was softly thudding against the ground; Longtail figured it was the leader’s tail, twitching in frustration. Aimed at ... himself, maybe? 

“I could have listened to you more. I could … I should have done more for Swiftpaw –”

“That was out of your control,” Longtail rushed in. Suddenly embarrassed at his outburst, he tried to think of something, _anything_ to retract and make it seem like the topic of Swiftpaw wasn’t like a bad leg he was still too scared to tread on. “It was … an accident,” he mumbled, echoing the many things he had been told himself.

The air hung around them like a heavy billow. The rain outside grew louder. 

“Regardless,” Firestar said quietly, as though he hardly dared to continue, “my point still stands. I’m not extraordinary. I’m just doing what anyone else would do.”

_Really? What_ anyone _else would?_

_Now you’ve outdone yourself in ignorance._

Longtail raised his head, propping himself up on his elbows. He felt … poised, anxious to put all of this stale tension to rest, like peals of thunder ready to burst. He racked his brain to figure out some way to express himself, churning through thoughts he’d never voice and inclinations he’d take with him to his grave.

Until, suddenly, his head was clear. He knew what to say.

“I suppose I’ll let you in on a little secret, kittypet,” Longtail said coolly, feeling his voice reverting back to his old temperament by the moment. _Good._ He wouldn’t have wanted anyone else but the young and brash Longtail to make this decisive shift in his life.

“If it hadn’t been for you, then _nobody_ would have stepped up to the plate. No-one would have stopped Tigerstar,” he spat, the wretched name feeling like a morsel of yarrow in his mouth. “We all _knew_ him, we all knew him growing up, and yet _you_ of all cats took one look at him and realized that something was amiss. You kept pressing on when everyone turned up their noses, you took every beating he had to offer and _saw_ to it that he’d be put in the ground for his crimes, you saved us, and you –”

Longtail stopped and swallowed.

“You saved the forest. And now you still have the heart to tend to one of his closest accomplices. I just don’t see how any of that could have been accomplished by just _anyone._ ”

For once, Longtail felt blessed to not have the privilege of sight. He had an excuse to ignore the immediate aftermath of his outburst, unable to dissect Firestar’s reactions to deduce whether or not he should be regretting his words. He lied there waiting, bunched in on himself, whole body tensed.

_Tensed for_ what? Sure, it had been uncharacteristic of him, but he hadn’t been out of line. 

To his surprise, he heard a quiet sniff amidst the thrum of the rain. 

“Do you really think so?”

Longtail huffed. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“I won’t, just …” Firestar trailed off. For a fleeting moment, the quiet self-assurance in his voice had faltered – giving off a glimpse of the young tom Longtail had met all those seasons ago, still unsure of his own place in this world. 

He cleared his throat, and began again, “I wasn’t ever sure if or how I should approach you about ... all this. Don’t get me wrong, I would never question your loyalties, but …”

Longtail understood. He, too, would have been happy to never speak of his old affiliations ever again, if given the choice. After all, they were warriors – where there was an issue, they’d solve it with their teeth, not their tongues.

“Yeah, well,” Longtail grunted, picking up the slack where Firestar was unwilling to elaborate, “my loyalties wouldn’t have amounted to much in Tigerstar’s eyes. I’ve no doubt in my mind that he would have fed me to the foxes once I stopped being of use to him.” 

That was to say, in Longtail’s mind, _I’m loyal only to you._

Firestar exhaled. When he spoke, his voice sounded much lighter. “I’m glad, then, that StarClan led you down this path. Not that all the credit goes to them – you’ve got a good heart in your chest, too. And I’m ashamed that it took me so long to see it.”

Longtail chuffed. A brown-nosing Firestar was something he had yet to behold, but even then, somehow, he still managed to sound dignified in his obsequity. In an another time, Longtail would have envied it, wishing that there would be something as righteous and justified in his own pride, too. But now, he could no longer bring himself to care – not for the life of him.

“I think …” a pause, followed by a head-shake, “... ah, well, it doesn’t matter what I think.”

“Hmm?”

“Forget it.”

“No, continue,” Firestar wheedled, mischief evident in his voice. “My word is law.”

Longtail drawled a long, theatrical sigh, as though having to be sincere for more than once in his life was a punishment worse than tick-duty. “I think that you’ve got a good heart, too, is all. And a good head on your shoulders.” He bashfully turned his blind gaze somewhere else, and added, “one of the best around.”

He realized with a sense of malcontent, that any and all of his words could be interpreted as sarcastic, in and out of context. Perhaps that was the reason he had fallen in with the wrong crowd to begin with – back then, fraudulent disingenuity was seen by his peers as a means to achieve stardom, not as an inability to confront one’s emotions. To his luck, however, Firestar seemed to take it the right way, not needling Longtail any further as his dignity had clearly already taken enough blows to last the moon.

But what went _too_ far is when Firestar started _purring._

“ _Hey_ , now,” Longtail protested, trying to establish authority with his rising tone, “don’t you dare think I’ve gone _soft_ on you. I could still beat you up, eyes or no eyes.”

The moment it left his mouth, Longtail feared that Firestar would take it as an actual threat on his person. But the latter’s mood seemed to have shifted completely, not sounding the least bit vexed by his empty warning.

“Now that I think about it,” said Firestar jovially, and Longtail imagined his whiskers twitching impishly as he spoke, “you could use a second notch in your ear, for symmetry’s sake.”

“ _Oi!_ ” Longtail exclaimed, unable to mask the laughter from his voice, “ _why_ , you little –”

“ _Not_ in my den.”

Both toms froze. A third cat, one with a distinct herbal scent, had loped her way through the crevice and into the den, stopping short of Longtail’s nest. Her pawsteps had halted abruptly, and an air of confusion manifested around her; Longtail imagined her flitting her gaze between the two, surprised to see that no hackles were lifted and no claws were unsheathed.

“That,” Cinderpelt blurted, “that sounded a little more threatening from the outside.”

Firestar chuckled. “You would think that I came into your den, only to attack your patient, wouldn’t you.”

Cinderpelt huffed. “How am I ever supposed to know with you toms?” she exclaimed, continuing to mutter under her breath as she limped off into the back of the den, presumably motivated by pure irk to get started on the grand herb-stock rearrangement she had long since been dawdling about. As evidenced by the sound of stalk bundles being set on the ground, the guess had been correct.

Had Longtail had the use of his eyes, he and Firestar would probably have shared a knowing look, stifling laughter behind her back like two apprentices pulling off a successful prank. But even without such gesture, an air of contentment remained, and the three of them fell into an easy silence. 

It gave Longtail a small moment to himself, in the privacy of his own mind, to bask in this strange newfound light. 

Having yelled at Firestar to stop being a modest idiot was one thing, but the dopey sensation of respite that followed was … something else. In his life, he had always found that making enemies was easier than making friends, and by extension that the distinction between the two was rarely as cut-clean as a crescent in the sky. But no-one had ever thought to teach him the arts of remedying, making amends, instead of challenging everything and everyone as he saw fit. It was an accident that he had stumbled upon by himself, but much unlike all the other ones in his life, this one had turned out to be pleasant.

The corners of Longtail’s mouth twitched upward. Perhaps old moles could be taught to dig new burrows after all.

Cinderpelt cleared her throat, effectively ending his trail of thought. “I’m sure my patient would like to start settling down for the night, Firestar,” she chided around the herb straws in her mouth. 

Firestar’s presence seemed to come alive at once, as though he himself had also been lost in his own thoughts for the duration of the moment. 

“Exiling your old mentor out of your den,” the leader said, straining his voice as he stretched the stillness out of his limbs, “ _I_ sure didn’t teach you those manners.”

“Cinderpelt could have a harbinger of StarClan in here and she’d still drive them off come moonhigh,” Longtail interjected, tail-tip curling playfully. 

Cinderpelt hadn’t looked up at that, as the sound of her working continued. “Same rules for everybody.”

Firestar laughed at that, a hearty purr rumbling in his chest, the sound of it almost infectious. 

“Alright, I ought to get going then,” he meowed, already on his feet. His paws treaded gingerly on the loamy den floor as he took a few tentative steps forward. Longtail hadn’t known why, until he felt Firestar lean close.

His neck tensed, as the leader’s head hovered hesitatingly in the air for a few beats, until he felt his nose press onto his brow for a heartbeat’s width. It was a complementary way of saying good-bye, substituting such words as “ _we will see eachother again_ ” – nothing out of the norm between Clanmates or friends across borders, but unheard of for the two of them. Longtail’s ears had bent backwards, but he hadn’t flinched away; a first among firsts. 

The moment was over quickly. Firestar padded away to the entrance of the den, but stopped to address the two cats in his wake. “Cinderpelt, remember that you’re hosting the medicine workshop for the apprentices in a few days,” he reminded, earning in return a non-committal “ _m-hmm_ ” from the back of the den.

“And Longtail –,” he continued, the direction of his voice indicating that he’d turned to look at the aforementioned, “– let’s talk soon again, yes?”

Longtail blinked, but his expression softened before he allowed it to. “Yeah. See you around, kittypet,” he smirked, offering him a jerky bow to esteem his departure. 

And with that, Firestar was gone, his pawsteps waning out of earshot. 

Longtail sighed. _What a strange cat_ , he thought, but not coldly.

The shuffling in the storage had paused long enough for a disapproving gaze to bore into his fur. “I can’t believe that you still insist on calling him that,” Cinderpelt reprimanded.

“Not _everything_ has to change,” said Longtail with a nonchalant smile.

Cinderpelt tutted and returned back to her stocks. She would be working long into the night, but Longtail didn’t mind – it was the sort of white noise that did wonders on lulling him to into a deep sleep. And it was working already.

A realization dawned upon him, as he bent down to preen the bed-fur on his back into an orderly shape, that for the first time in this entire ordeal, his sightlessness hadn’t been consistently at the top of his mind – or even at the bottom of it, briefly. The suffocating feeling that came when he thought about it was still there, atop his chest and below his throat, but somehow, anyhow it didn’t feel nearly as terrifying as it had before. 

Instead, he found himself reveling in the new feeling alongside it; the strange tranquility, that felt gold and warm in his stomach and put his thoughts at ease. It felt like the calm after a long, arduous storm, when the pressure in the air dissipates at last and the sun makes itself seen again. 

The strangest of all, though, was how Mousefur’s visitation was no longer the only one he looked forward to.

With a content little sigh, Longtail laid his weary head against the feather-padded edge of his nest, and closed his eyes.

Outside, the rain had stopped.

**Author's Note:**

> whew!! this is my third-ever finished, first-ever published fanfic. bit scary but this was really fun to write!
> 
> thanks to my friends anna @redspedic for the feedback and iia @skiesbelow for catching a single typo, and most of all because neither of you care about warrior cats but still had the patience to read 4.5k words about it :*
> 
> check me out on twitter & tumblr as @meggiscat!


End file.
